PLYMOUTH NORTH MALE ATHLETE OF 2013: Ian Allen

Ian Allen can pinpoint almost the exact moment when the realization hit him that he had the kind of talent on the track oval that earned him selection as the Old Colony Memorial Plymouth North Male Athlete of the Year.

Ian Allen can pinpoint almost the exact moment when the realization hit him that he had the kind of talent on the track oval that earned him selection as the Old Colony Memorial Plymouth North Male Athlete of the Year.

“It was the 200-meter race at the Freshman/Sophomore event during the spring season when I was a 10th grader. I barely got into the finals with the absolute last qualifying time,” Allen remembered. “I started out horribly and was way behind everyone else in the finals, but then I hit the straight-away and started passing everyone. I ended up with a personal best time and took the race to win my first gold medal.”

Allen is the embodiment of what the phrase “student athlete” is all about. A three-season athlete and National Honor Society member with a grade point average of 4.34, Allen has made people take notice on the soccer field and the track over the last four years. He’s run everything from the 55-meter dash up to the 800-meter race, but his specialty are the 200- and 300-meter dashes.

A captain of the winter and spring track teams, he has excelled in the short-distance races for the Blue Eagle track and field program, speeding his way into the conversation with the top sprinters in the area. His top time in the 100-meter dash is 11 seconds flat, in the 200 it’s 22.03 seconds and in the 300 he has a personal best time of 36.18.

Allen’s been an Atlantic Coast League All-Star team selection twice during the winter season, qualifying for the state meet three times and the All-State championship in the 300 dash last year.

During the spring season, Allen is a three-time ACL All-Star with a chance to add one more to his resume.

“I love to run. It’s pretty much my passion,” Allen said. “I was a pretty fast runner as a kid, but once I got involved with track I quickly saw that I was much better at the shorter sprints rather than the distance races.”

Allen credited Plymouth North Head Coach Tom Giatrakos with helping refine his natural talent, providing motivation and teaching him how to be a better runner through proper mechanics, training and nutrition.

“Once he really committed to the training, you could really see the talent Ian had inside of him. I think we’re just scratched the surface of how good he can be,” Giatrakos said. “He wasn’t very good at the start of his freshman year, but something happened that spring and he turned it around. Ian put in the work to become the great captain and team leader that you see today.”

As hard as he’s worked to improve his times on the oval, Allen’s done it without allowing his grades to suffer one single bit. He has already been accepted by WPI but is keeping his options open with Northeastern, RPI and the University of Massachusetts-Lowell all still in the running.

Page 2 of 2 - Allen is interested in studying biomedical engineering once he gets to college.

E-Mail the reporter at dwolcott@wickedlocal.com and follow him on Twitter, @davidwolcott1.